Substance use and addiction are maladaptive “solutions” to the restrictions and limitations life confronts us with. A better solution can be found in the cultivation of creativity in Recovery.
Active addiction ultimately “dumbs us down” – intellectually, spiritually and creatively. It simplifies us and stultifies us.
Drugs and alcohol have been abused for centuries in the mistaken belief that they enhance creativity but most observers agree that drugs and alcohol produce at most a transitory and illusory benefit in stimulating creativity. The famous French poet Baudelaire described the initially pleasing effects of opiates as well as their subsequent catastrophic mental sequelae (vegetative states, obsessive pursuit of the drug to the exclusion of all other activities, intellectual “dumbing down” to the point of idiocy, nightmarish withdrawals, etc…)
I can certainly relate to this: nothing killed my creativity more effectively than opiates. I am saddened when I see today’s youth embrace the myth that drugs enhance creativity because the truth is just the opposite. Creativity requires spiritual and intellectual complexity, something opiates and indeed drugs in general (including alcohol) cannot provide.
What do we mean by creativity? It could mean something as simple as patiently solving an everyday problem or taking the time to pursue a hobby – achievements that are impossible even to contemplate when we are in the throes of a time-consuming mono-fixation (obtaining drugs). Improving creativity can be viewed as one of the signs that we are well on the road to Recovery. We now find that we have more choices and that there are many more available opportunities for us as we become creative in Recovery. These increased options are part and parcel of our new-found creativity and are one of the many benefits of Recovery.
We can now engage with the outside world. Confidence grows naturally and talents are developed that we never even knew we had. We become more spontaneous and this spontaneity replaces the ritualistic substance-seeking that was so limiting and so characteristic of our disease. In Recovery, our minds gradually develop a menu of daily choices in contrast to the monotonous fare of our addiction.
Enhanced creativity is one of the amazing rewards of Recovery.
Leave a Reply